Robin Hobb - The Inheritance and Other Stories

Even after his death, even after all the years, it was still hard to forgive him for that. Aloysius had gone on to doing sound-track arrangements, and I still could pick out Mikey’s tenor in a lot of sampled backup stuff. I hadn’t had the heart to go on with music after the disappointment. I’d gotten a day job, a wife, and eventually a kid, a KewpieDoll male the first year they’d come out. He was seven now, and still cuter than hell, with curly hair and big dark eyes. I’d made it, I told myself as I watched Cecily zoom in on me. I’d succeeded. I was good at what I did, and I knew it. What more than that could a man ask?

She sat down in front of my desk. Our Interface desks and chairs are elevated just slightly, only an inch or two. Even so, she didn’t have to look up at me. But she didn’t look at me at all. She merely handed me her disk. I popped it into my machine. I didn’t have to open the confirmation port for her. She did that herself and expertly rolled her fingers across the glass. The reason for that flashed up immediately. She’d refused her reproductive choice nine times in the last four months. Of course, she would know the routine by now.

The computer immediately gave me a first option for terminating the interview.

The lines came up at the bottom of my screen specs. “I’m sorry, Ms. Kelvey, but you are well aware of your reproductive status at this time.” Firm tone recommended. That was the weighted suggestion.

Alternative. If applicant appears agitated, press any key for Security now.

Alternative. If applicant is calm and Social Interface judges it prudent, proceed as for normal interview.

Cecily looked determined, not agitated. If she had looked overwrought, believe me, I would have called Security. I’d seen Cecily in a temper and knew what she was capable of doing. She wasn’t angry, not yet. Both curiosity and nostalgia swayed me. From the way she looked at me, I didn’t think she’d recognized me. I didn’t think I had changed that much, but my screen spectacles are the bulky government-issue type, and I had them set at semiopaque. I double blinked to bring up the next screen. She saw it and waited silently.

The information surprised me. She’d completed a psychological evaluation followed by a personality reorganization class a year ago. Her obsessive/compulsive disorder was controlled with medication. Her preparenting scores were within the acceptable range. She had four preapproved fetus choices, all children selected from the “nondemanding” end of the spectrum. Her physical size had limited her to smaller infants for natural birth. Still. Four choices weren’t bad. I’d interviewed prospective parents who were limited to one or two options and still managed to send them away happy. Mentally, I earmarked a Cherub2 male as being her best bet. I’d steer her that way.

I smiled at her sunglasses and observed, “Well, Ms. Kelvey, does this visit mean you’ve reached a choice on your options?”

She took a breath. That brisk rise and fall of her small breasts that had always indicated she was going to take a stand with Cliff. Not a good sign. Her voice was as I remembered it, girlish and without depth. She’d wanted to do backup vocals for Flat Plats, had even bought an enhancer, but Cliff had refused her. “We’re retro,” he had reminded her harshly. “Real voices. Real instruments. Real people playing them.” The flung enhancer had given him a black eye.

“Not exactly.” Her voice jerked me back to the present. “This visit is so I can submit documentation as to why my request for a free conception should be granted.” She bent down to the canvas tote at her feet and began taking out papers. Some were folded, some yellowed at the edges. Papers. The information hadn’t even been scanned to disk. I accepted it from her hands the way you take wilted dandelions from a kid. It’s the intention. A tap set my specs to scan as I looked over her “documentation.”

None of it was biologically acceptable data. It was a weird spectrum of stuff, from old grade readouts from high school to IQ tests that documented Cliff’s brilliance. There was even a newspaper clipping that called him a “rock Mozart.” My heart sank as I realized what she was angling after. She didn’t want an approved fetal implant. She was going for an egg/sperm conception. In some parts of the world, they were still common, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why anyone would choose to take such monumental risks.

I obediently finished blinking the material into her reproductive request file. The nature of the entries might set off a red flag. The behavior of compiling such a pile of nonrelevant information was a definite earmark of obsession. She might find her prescriptions adjusted the next time she got her monthly implant. Cecily’s actions, I told myself, not mine. If it made trouble for her, she’d brought it on herself. I gave the sheaf of documents back to her. She held them and watched me hopefully.

“So.” I glanced at my timer. Three more minutes before I went into overtime with her. “Apparently you wish to conceive a random fetus with eggs from yourself and sperm from Cliff Wangle. You have his permission to do this?”

Her shades were so dark, I couldn’t tell if she met my gaze or not. “He’s dead. But before his death, he made a sperm deposit at a private facility. They were a birthday gift to me. As my property, they are mine to use as I wish.”

“That is true.”

“But I can’t schedule an insemination without a permit. That’s all I’m here for today. A permit.”

“One moment, please.” I swiveled back to my keyboard. A blink or two brought up her genetic rating on my specs. I had to key in Cliff’s SSN to do a search for his. Both were as I expected. Unacceptable . “I’m very sorry, Ms, Kelvey, but neither you nor your sperm donor is genetically qualified to reproduce. Fortunately, this does not mean that you cannot have a child. It is a woman’s right to choose, of course, and we have four possible choices for you.” I swiveled my monitor screen toward her and blinked to pull up a split screen of four adorable babies. One gurgled aloud and then sneezed endearingly. I damped the volume.

She took off her sunglasses and stared at me. The crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes reminded me of how many years had passed since I had last seen her. The flat anger in her blue eyes told me that my screen specs were no disguise at all.

“Cut the crap, Chesterton. I want a real baby, not a seed-catalog clone. I want Cliff’s baby. I know you can do this for me. Push the button and hand me a slip. That’s all you have to do.”

The bottom dropped out of my stomach. I knew I was subject to random monitoring. Some Interfaces believe we are constantly monitored. My instructors had always counseled me to behave as if we were. That was how one stayed at maximum efficiency. It was also how to keep your job. “I can’t do that, Cecily,” I said quietly. “There is some latitude in my job, but not near that much. If your health allows it . . .” I punched some keys and got a tentative okay. “ . . . by opting for a C-section delivery, one sometimes gains a few additional choices . . .” I punched a few more keys, then shook my head at the readouts on my specs. “But not in your case. Temperament can be more restrictive than physical biology.” I winked and the Cherub2 male expanded to fill the screen. “But this little fellow is a perfect match for you. Look at that curly hair, and those big blue eyes.”

“I don’t want curly hair, or big blue eyes. I don’t want perfect teeth and zero birth defects. I don’t want any of the features and benefits I’ve been hearing about for nine months. I want Cliff’s baby, Chesterton. And Cliff Wangle’s baby deserves to be born just as much as any of these gen-engineered ones. More so. You guarantee any of those four will have average intelligence? Well, Cliff’s baby would be a genius.”